The Connection

AR: Sorry. I was asleep.

MM: no worries. you need it. howre you feeling?

AR: I’m fine. Tired, but that’s probably the painkillers.

MM: no shit :)

AR: Your empathy is astounding.

MM: I know ;)

AR: Be nice. I’m injured.

MM: when am I not nice?

AR: Do you really want me to answer that?

________

“Mom? Can I ask you a favor?”

His mother doesn’t turn to look at him, just continues to fuss with the ancient TV tray that she brought up from the basement. The doctor told her that Avery should not exert himself for a few days; and apparently his mom feels like walking down a single flight of stairs to actually eat dinner with the rest of his family falls under that category. Avery’s been cooped up in his room since he got home from the ER, three days ago. His mother even took those three days off to make sure he ate, stayed in bed and took his painkillers. The rest of the time, she just hovers. She’s always checking on Avery; as he flips mindlessly though channels, and sketches, and even once when he was in the shower.

It was annoying the first day and it’s still so now. The only relief he gets from his constant nurse maid of a mother is when Quinn pops in to bother him or when Kat brings him his homework. He loves when Kat comes because even though his mom treats him as if he’s a fragile china doll, Kat treats him the same as she always does, which is to say, not very nicely.

When she comes over, she doesn’t knock. Just throws open his door with a cry of, ‘honey! I’m home!’ and then she throws his pile of homework and books on his desk. Then she immediately toes off her muddy (always. Even when it hasn’t rained for weeks.) Chuck’s, and brazenly crawls into his bed, pushing him to the other side without so much as a ‘please.’ She then yanks the remote out of his hand and changes the channel to gory true crime shows, or cartoons. And if he’s on his laptop, she commandeers that too, logging into Tumblr and leaving a trail of highly suggestive, always homosexual fan art in his history. Kat’s her usual abrasive self, only limiting her physical abuse of him, and keeping him updated on the newest gossip and reminding him of how much she hates school when he’s gone. She’s still mean to him, unlike everyone else who treats him carefully and too kindly.

He’s missed her.

“Mom?” Avery tries again, raising his voice slightly.

“We need to get new trays. Do they even sell them anymore?” His mother muses, wrestling with the table. Avery rolls his eyes.

”MOM.”

“What do you need, sweetie?” She sighs finally, setting his bowl of steaming soup on his bedside table.

“Can I go to Kat’s tonight? It’s Saturday.” He adds quickly, because his mother knows that Saturday’s are movie nights, and that he’s had a movie night with Kat every Saturday since eighth grade. What his mother doesn’t know is Max and Cooper join in. And Avery’s more than a little eager to see Max. His mother frowns.

“Is it really? Hm. Time flies when you’re nursing a concussed child back to health.” He mother remarks breezily. Avery rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, I know. But I feel fine, really. And Kat is kind of expecting me.” He says, keeping the note of pleading in his voice.

“Avy, honey…”

“Mom, please? It’s just Kat. Please?” He begs, sticking out his bottom lip and looking up at his mom with huge, round eyes. Mrs. Reeves chews her bottom lip thoughtfully for a moment. Finally she sighs heavily, her breath blowing her reddish blonde bangs out of her face, only to flop back into her eyes. It’s a gesture he’s seen Quinn repeat too many times to count.

“Okay. But!” She adds at Avery triumphant grin, her eyes taking on the steely edge they get when she bargains with her children, one that says she won’t be swayed anymore.

“But I want you home at eleven. No if’s, and’s, or but’s! You got it?” She adds threateningly.

“Okay, Mom. Thank you.” Avery grins, already pushing back the pile of blankets over his legs. His mother’s hand on top of his own stops him.

“I mean it, Avy. Eleven, no later! Or I swear I’ll come get you!” She says in a tone that makes him believe that she will. He shudders at the very thought.

“I promise. I won’t turn into a pumpkin on you, Mom.” He grins. Mrs. Reeves huffs, a smile on her lips.

“You’d better not. I have no idea where to find your Prince Charming and… And that’s another thing!” She calls, still on her mission to meet Avery’s rarely discussed Soul Mate. Avery cuts off her complaints with the closing of his bathroom door, and the sound of water running at full blast.
Two showers a day never hurt, right?
________

Half an hour and one quick text to Kat later, and Avery’s knocking on Cooper’s front door.
He shuffles on the porch as he waits for someone to open the door. The dark hair at the nape of his neck drips cold shower water down the collar of his too-warm flannel. The April evening is sticky and far too hot, even for Avery’s lightest over-shirt, but he really doesn’t want to show off the bruises littering his arms. Time has turned the eggplant-y splotches into a mix of jaundice yellow and a shade of green that only really ill people can achieve. They’re decidedly not attractive, so he’ll suffer with sleeves and his t-shirt sticking to his back.

Avery glances at the Cleft’s driveway, as he considers knocking again. There are only three cars resting on the smoothly paved concrete. Cooper’s mud-splattered, black Jeep, Max’s spotless Chevelle, looking freshly waxed and his own sad little Volvo, looking out of place as a car that he paid only a thousand dollars for can. Avery knocks again, his knuckles bouncing off the sturdy wood of the Cleft’s front door. He wonders what Cooper’s parents do. He assumes it’s a job that requires long hours, because there are never any others cars in the driveway. Wait. Maybe one time he saw a sleek, candy apple red Lexus when he was over at Kat’s.

“We didn’t know if you’d show. So we picked a movie without you.” Cooper huffs having finally opened his front door.

“Is it a John Huges movie?” Avery questions the surly looking tackle standing in the doorway. Avery grins at Cooper’s sour scoff.

“You try telling her no. She gets all pouty and I don’t feel like dealing with it. You know what I mean.” Cooper explains breezily, making Avery laugh harder.

“She usually just hits me until I give in. I guess you’re special.”

“Sucks for you then. We got pizza, but I don’t know if Max got that weird cheese thing you eat. We didn’t know if you’d show up due to the… ahem… altercation.” Cooper remarks, ushering Avery into the foyer and further into the kitchen.

“It’s fine. I already ate at home.” Avery reassures him, heading towards the living room. From within he can hear the sounds of Kat griping about something in a shrill tone, and he can hear Max’s rough baritone answer her. A light hand on his shoulder stops him. Cooper looks down at him; an uncharacteristic hesitancy in his gray eyes.

“Hey. You should probably know that—“

“Molly Ringwald was not a good actress,” The gruff voice of Max scoffs from the living room and when answered by a shrill, indignant protest, ”Fuck this. I’m getting a soda.”

Max stops dead when he sees Avery and Cooper standing in the kitchen. But he probably stops for another reason other than the one Avery stops for. The left side of Max’s gorgeous face looks like Avery’s arms; all sickly yellow and an even sicker shade of green. His left eye looks like the cartoon renditions of a black eye; deep blue, almost black under his eye and yellow above, a small gash crisscrossing his eyebrow. His beautiful forest canopy iris is obscured by the busted blood vessel red slit that is his eyeball. There’s a deep gash across his cheekbone and one running down the center of his bottom lip. Like a dream, Avery can taste the rusty copper coin flavor of blood on his own bottom lip.

“Hey, you’re like a matched set of battery.” Cooper interjects happily, obviously trying to defuse the upcoming shit-storm. Max shoots him a withering look, though only half of his face betrays it.

“Give us a minute.” Max says calmly, and it’s not the deathly clam tone that heralds danger. No, it’s tired, worn down to the bone, and sick of fighting. It’s the voice Max used when he told Avery he wouldn’t hurt him again; and as Avery looks at Max’s one good eye, he can see the same worn, exhausted gleam in those golden green depths that he saw when Max made the claim. Cooper throws his hands up in mock surrender, and carefully side-steps Max, returning to the living room with a muffled cry of, ‘Hey! That’s my seat!’

Max steps forward and for an unthinkable second, Avery thinks Max might hug him. Avery’s thought about physical contact with Max more than he’d care to admit. But at the mere thought of those huge arms wrapped around his bony frame, about how he would bury his nose into the motor-oil, coffee and leather scent that is Max; he freezes. His whole body becoming like stone. Something flashes for a second in Max’s expression. Something fleeting and gone in the blink of an eye.

It looked like hurt.

Max doesn’t touch him, just rounds behind him to open the fingertip spotted fridge. Avery turns to watch Max extract a plain Coke and a cherry one. He hands the cherry one to Avery, and leans against the same counter that’s nudging the small of Avery’s back.

“I told everyone it was Harris.”

Avery’s blood runs icy in his veins. When he speaks his voice is low like Max’s, but carrying a betraying hint of sadness whereas Max’s carries resignation.

“And it wasn’t.” And when Max doesn’t respond, “And people believe it.”

Max takes a long pull from his can before he respond, shrugging his shoulders.

“Yeah. Kat and I fucked with his car. A shitty yellow Mustang. We did it all; keyed, nails in the tires, Kat even put a pound of shrimp in the air vents. I had to help, she’s terrible with cars.” Max says with a note of laughter in his voice. And it is funny. And Avery would laugh with too, if he wasn’t so worried about Max.

“And they think he retaliated.” Avery supplies, leaning his back against the counter. Avery’s shoulder rubs against Max’s bicep, and through the fabric of his flannel he can feel the rock hard muscles relax slightly. It’s almost unnoticeable, but Avery knows Max leans ever-so-slightly into the touch.

“Well, he really did.” Max says lamely, “He thought I did it, never knew Kat helped. And he did try to beat me up. But I guess I won? I dunno, I just kind of got a couple of hits in and he gave up. Left me alone. He’ll leave you alone too.” Max reassures, bumping into Avery’s shoulder lightly. Avery swallows; he won’t dare look at Max.

“What really happened?” Avery ventures quietly. Max drains his soda, and crushes the can in his fist, sighing softly.

“Mike got drunk. And Allie was in the living room, watching TV. Mike started yelling at her and I was in the kitchen making dinner. So I went in, told him to stop. He got pissed and… yeah.” He says his voice heavy with a kind of hopelessness that makes Avery’s blood boil. He wants to scream at Max. And he has so many questions. Why doesn’t Max fight back? Why does his step dad get shitfaced all the time? Why doesn’t Max’s mom make him stop? But instead, he too, drains his soda and says calmly.

“And Allie’s okay, right?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. Well, she didn’t get hit. I guess.” He says gruffly, his thick fingers kneading the already crushed can. Avery swallows the lump in his throat as he grapples with something to say. He wants to tell Max that’ll get better. But they both know it won’t. Avery wants to tell Max that he and Allie can come live with him and his family. But his father would shit and Max and Allie are both underage. He wants to pull Max into his thin frame and stroke his hair like his mother did when she found him, bruised and battered on the couch. But he can’t.

“You… you can, you know, come to my house. When things get like that. Bring Allie, too.” He says instead, looking down at the gleaming wood floor. He can feel Max’s eyes boring into the side of his face. His neck feels hot.

“She and Quinn would get along, I think. Actually, I know. When Quinn was like, thirteen she tried knitting and was terrible. She kind of looks at all the yarn she bought like it’s a dead hamster. It’s kind of sad.” Avery remarks. Next to him, Max’s body softens, the tension melting from his muscles as he chuckles.

“And me?”

I would draw you. And I would show you my room and watch movies with you. And I would find a way so that you and your sweet little sister would never have to go back.

“My mom loves to cook for people. I’m sure she’d love to make beef jerky for you. Or a protein shake. Or… um, what else to muscle men eat?”

Max laughs. A deep, raspy rumble from deep within Max’s chest that makes Avery’s heart swell with warmth.

“Shut the fuck up, Av.”
________

There’s a subtle shift then.

Something warm and tangible. Something that Cooper, Kat, Quinn and even Avery’s parents notice. It’s like when the bleak cold of February thaws into the clean rain and warm breezes of March. Things feel different between Max and Avery. They stop asking questions about each other, and start to talk idly.

They talk about their days.

Max tells Avery that football practices are murder now that they almost won state. Avery tells Max that he’s been to four different craft stores and he still can’t find the right kind of charcoal. Max tells him that at his job he had to explain to a customer that no, there is no such thing as headlight fuel, and that she probably got ripped off. He then complains that she didn’t believe him and he had to call his supervisor over to tell her the same thing (Avery tries not to think about Max in a tight, dirty mechanic’s shirt and pants, with a smudge of grease on his freckled cheekbone). He tells Max that his Dad is going on another sabbatical this summer to Japan, and that his mother doesn’t know if she wants to tag along and leave him and Quinn for that long.
They talk about their families.

Max tells Avery that he remembers very little about his dad. What he does remember is someone really tall, with a kind smile and who bought him his first football when Max wasn’t any good at baseball. He doesn’t remember much about his parents divorce, he doesn’t even know if they were married. He remembers waking up one night to screaming, and he sleepily climbed out of bed and went over the crib on the other side of his room. He reached in, standing on tiptoes, to hold his crying newborn sister, just like his mother taught him to. He rocked Allie to sleep in his skinny arms and when he woke up the next morning, his father was gone.

He says that Mike was some regular that his mom met while bartending a year or two after. He says that his mom was lonely, and that Mike was charming. Or was for a while, at least. Max complained when Mike moved in. He told his mom that they didn’t need another man in the house because he was the one that cooked dinners of PBJ sandwiches and got Allie ready for school. His mom ignored him. Max was eight when the beating started. His mom still ignored him.

You could find your dad. You know his name, right?

and say what. he hasnt contacted me or allie since. I dont even think he pays child support.
Avery tells him that his parents have been sickeningly in love since their first date. And that he doesn’t remember when Quinn was born, he was only two. But he tells Max that his parents say that Avery hated Quinn and when the brought her home, he cried and told them he didn’t want a little sister, he wanted a puppy.

And I never got a puppy. I got Quinn, who uses all the hot water and drinks all the coffee.

Max actually called him in order to laugh at him and call him a selfish asshole.

Avery didn’t mind, though. Max’s raspy rumble of a laugh sounded just as nice over the phone, and his voice sounded closer and warmer coming through the tiny speaker pressed against Avery’s ear. In the background Avery could hear the quite rumble of a slower sounding Led Zeppelin and once a shrill voice asking him if he knew where something was. That same voice turned giggly when it realized Max was on the phone with Avery.

”Tell your boyfriend I said hi!” The voice giggled sweetly.

“Get the hell out of here, Allie!” Max barked. The sound of a door slamming followed and as much as Avery wanted to laugh, he didn’t. He asked about the music in the background instead. They talked until two am, when Avery was practically falling asleep on the phone and Max was yawning frequently.

Things at school were equally as nice.

Although Avery’s mom called the school several times, complaining and threatening, the school stood by the fact that Avery never reported it, and therefore it never ‘really’ happened. They said they questioned Harris and that he seemed to be innocent.

“He and a few other students say that he wasn’t even in the locker room at that time. Does your son have any witnesses?”

“Yes. The concussion and bruised ribs he sustained from the attack are pretty good witnesses.” She hissed, only to be put on hold for an hour. Mrs. Reeves called even more and was deflected just as much, balancing the phone between her shoulder and ear as she chopped carrots and celery with impressive venom. When Monday rolled around, she sent Avery away reluctantly, squeezing his healing ribs too hard in one final hug and demanded that he call her after work. But neither the Goons nor Logan Harris so much looked his way during PE.

Although Harris swelled shut eye might have been a factor in that.

The Saturday before finals instead of a movie they sat in Cooper’s massive dining room, with books, notes and laptops sprawled out before them. Avery reviewed 1984 with Max, and spent a half an hour gently correcting his grammar with a purple pen and a genuine smile when Max correctly used semi colons and commas. Max spent over an hour helping Kat with Geometry and Chemistry. Avery watched over the top of his history notes as Max sat next to her, patiently correcting her formulas and telling her to, ‘shut up and listen and you won’t!’ when Kat groaned about her sure to be failure.

To Avery’s surprise, Max was actually a really good teacher (despite his occasionally scoff and insult at Kat’s moaning) and he seemed to grasp numbers and formulas just as well as he could catch footballs and fix cars. Avery smiled when Max gave Kat a shoulder bump and begrudging praise when she was able to correctly formulate a chemical equation. Cooper spent the time being annoying, flicking rubber bands at Max, going through Kat’s Tumblr (“Really Kat? Isn’t that guy an angel? That’s seriously fucked.”), and complaining about his growling stomach. The three studying finally had enough and sent him away to get pizza. Needless to say, they all passed their finals. Even Kat. For the first time in recent memory Avery feels light and happy.

He can’t believe he’s actually looking forward to summer.